


Youth's a Stuff Will Not Endure

by reine_des_corbeaux



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Conflict, Connected Vignettes, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, M/M, Mercutio & Tybalt are Childhood Friends, POV Second Person, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-23 00:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17070095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux
Summary: It's harder than it seems to be young in a world permeated by violent delights and violent ends. Mercutio finds this out the hard way. (Or, vignettes of a short life not altogether devoid of love).





	Youth's a Stuff Will Not Endure

In the end, you curse them both, because what else is there to do in this world of blood and ruin? How else do you show love and hatred in equal measure at the end of a world? 

I.

You’re seven years old, and you know nothing about family conflict, about young men shouting in the streets for the sheer adrenaline rush that hatred brings. You have no idea that someday, you will have to pick a side, or even an idea that sides exist. In your world, summers last forever and winters are interminable, and you are an orphan in the house of Verona’s prince. So on one of the sweat-stuck days of an endless summer, you sneak out of your princely kinsman’s palazzo to one of the wild places on the river’s frothing edge. You’ve always been good at shaking off your tutors, and you’ve outrun them easily today; in the blaze of youth, you’re invigorated by the sun that seems to dessicate and exhaust adults. 

There’s another boy waiting for you at the river’s margin, skipping stones into the current. You call out to him, and at first he doesn’t notice, but he turns, grinning, when you shout his name a second time. 

“Tybalt!” 

  
Tybalt Capulet is your best friend, another orphan in another of Verona’s noble families. He likes cats and sunshine and long summer days, and he’s just so lonely you can’t help but want to be close to him. 

Settling down on the rocks next to Tybalt, you flick a stone of your own into the blue of the Adige, and you listen to the wind and the toll of church bells. You reckon that you’ve got a solid two hours before someone realizes you’re gone. Tybalt grins at you. 

“Hello,” he says, and you smile back, because that’s what best friends do. 

“My uncle’s having a feast tonight,” you announce. “Is your family coming?” 

“We have to.” Tybalt’s face darkens. “Montagues and Capulets together. For some reason.” 

“Why don’t you like the Montagues?” 

You’re not really sure what a Montague is, but Tybalt must have reasons for his dislike. He’s a year older than you, and that makes him wise. 

“I don’t know.” There’s confusion in his face and in the timbre of his voice. “But my lord uncle and my lady aunt hate them, so I think I have to hate them too.” 

“Then I hate the Montagues as well.” 

You’re matter-of-fact about it, because when you’re a child, kindling hatred is that simple. A word in the mouth, a phrase uttered, and you go back to skipping stones. The sky is blue, and the Montagues are evil, and picking a side is easier than breathing.

II. 

You’re eight years old, and you forget that you told Tybalt that you hated their family when you meet Romeo and Benvolio Montague. 

They’re exactly your age, two bright-eyed, innocent cousins, full of a shy and hopeful kind of joy. You’re not any older than them, but you feel protective, almost. You want to be their friend, if only to share in their love of the world. 

Benvolio is plain-spoken and serious for an eight year old. Already, his feet are grounded solidly upon the earth. You decide you like that about him, that he introduces himself with a crisp bow, with his full name. In his mannerisms, he’s something like a kinder version of your uncle, shrunken down to child size.

Romeo is different. 

“I’m Romeo!” he exclaims when you first meet. 

He’s a bundle of barely contained energy, bouncing on the balls of his feet as if he is suspended by excitement. The look in his eyes is eager, curious, intelligent. It’s as if, to him, a potential friendship with you is the most interesting thing in the world. 

“I’m Mercutio,” you say. “Can we be friends?”   
“Of course!” Romeo cries out.

He rushes forward and nearly topples you with a surprisingly strong hug. Benvolio is already wringing his hands, standing behind Romeo like an anxious mother, but he’s laughing too. 

“Romeo, your mother said you couldn’t do that.” 

“But he’s my new friend! You have to hug friends!” 

Benvolio appears to need only that permission to jump in and hug you as well. Soon, you’re all on the ground like a pile of puppies, giggling with delight. This is not how your uncle’s audience days usually go, but it’s nice to have the courtyard garden ringing with laughter. It’s better than sitting alone watching ladybugs fall across leaves. You’ve heard your uncle muttering in the off hours about the violence festering in Verona’s streets, but you don’t understand what he’s talking about. Not on a day like this. There’s so much sunlight, and suddenly there are three more people to love in your life. Everything’s golden and glowy. 

And Tybalt won’t mind you having two more best friends, will he? 

III. 

You’re ten years old, and Tybalt is screaming in your face, his own face a mask of rage and disgust. 

“I can’t believe you! I can’t believe you’d ever be friends with Montagues!” 

You’re only ten and you don’t know why Tybalt has to be so angry, but you’re old enough to know anger when you see it, so you fight right back. 

“They’re my friends, Tybalt! They’re nice people!”

“He’s Montague’s heir! He hates me!” 

“Romeo doesn’t hate anyone and neither does Benvolio.”

“That’s only what you think because you’re stupid.” 

You’ve never seen rage transform a person like this, to this extent. You’re both so young, and you’re both so angry, and something tells you this shouldn’t be right, but you’re powerless to stop the spew of words. 

“I’m not stupid,” you say. “You’re stupid because you won’t try to be friends.” 

“With Montagues?” he laughs, and all the charm and humor you’ve come to know in Tybalt are absent from his bitter, mirthless smile. “Some of us can’t be friends with Montagues.” 

“That’s ridiculous. Why not? I’m able to be friends with both Montagues and Capulets!” 

“You’re an Escalus. You don’t have a stake in our battles besides trying to stop them.” 

“I don’t even know why you’re fighting!” 

The yelling scares you, but you try to match your voice to Tybalt’s, to show him by your volume that you’re not afraid of him. 

“It’s what we do! Montagues hate Capulets and Capulets hate Montagues and we  _ can’t  _ be friends! Who knows would would happen to Juliet if we were?” 

Tybalt would only invoke his cousin if he was truly upset. You’ve only met the girl a few times, but you know how much Tybalt loves her, how he’d rip down cities to protect her. And there’s no way to argue with love. 

“Juliet doesn’t care about battles! She likes butterflies,” you say. 

Maybe he’ll remember friendship by remembering the day he told you that. But you don’t have much hope. 

“But someday she might care, and I have to protect her because of that!” 

“You could at least try to be friends with Benvolio and Romeo. Maybe Juliet would approve?” 

It comes out a question. 

“I couldn’t. And she wouldn’t. And you can’t be my friend anymore if you keep being theirs.” 

So you stop being his friend. 

Easy and hard as that.

(Later, you’ll try to pretend that you don’t go home and cry, because you’re ten years old and nearly a man and it shouldn’t be this hard to give friends up. No one ever told you how much it would hurt to say goodbye so cruelly and so coldly.) 

IV.

You’re twelve years old and Romeo and Benvolio are your entire world. You’ve all grown up to be hellions, as your uncle Escalus says. Valentine, your older brother, reprimands you with disapproving glances. Prince Escalus is grooming him to be his heir, and he’s a natural diplomat, above the petty feuds of Montague and Capulet. Your favoritism embarrasses him, but you’ve given up Tybalt already. You can’t lose Romeo and Benvolio as well. 

You fence with each other, and filch from the kitchens, plunging grubby hands into barrels of food and running screaming from cooks. Even Benvolio can’t help but join in the fun, for your laughter is contagious. 

Once, you convinced Romeo there was a ghost in the cathedral belfry, and Benvolio went along with it. Wide-eyed, he waited in the cathedral until midnight, chilled with fear and biting cold, you and Benvolio sitting next to him, hiding laughter with your hands. When Laurence, the old friar who often patrols the cathedral by night, found you with your friends, you were roughly scolded, called “instigator” and other names you didn’t listen to. The gleeful thrill of fear and the panicked look on Romeo’s face when he thought Friar Laurence was the fictitious ghost were worth all the switchings in the world. 

You’ve grown especially close to Romeo, and every day, you look forward to seeing his eager face, his too-long hair flopping into his wide and ever-optimistic eyes. Sometimes, you think, you could stare at him and never get bored. He’s always so full of life, so ready for adventure. You want to spend forever in a place where you can forever be an adventurer by his side. 

It’s a hot day with a brilliant gold-coin sun, and you’re lying in the river shade while Benvolio fishes and Romeo throws rocks. Such sleepy pleasures for a warm day. You fan yourself with a freckled hand. The sun has reached the apex of its arc, and your mind is as cloudless as the sky. You are so intent on the rushing of the river that you do not hear the rustling in the bushes behind you. But you’d recognize that voice, at once languorous and acidic, anywhere. 

“Oh look, would you? It’s a pack of Montague rats.” 

Tybalt has friends with him, a few older Capulet boys, their rapiers glinting in the summer sun. You have an inkling that you should step in and stop things before they come to blows. As kin to the prince, you have that power. And the Capulets’ rapiers look sharp. 

“And one of the House of Escalus.” 

It’s supposed to sound brave, but your voice cracks pitifully on the final syllable. 

Tybalt ignores you. He draws his rapier, and it rattles a little against the scabbard as he struggles to free it. He’s only thirteen, and his face is masked and contorted with a hate you don’t recognize. 

“Knock it off,” you mumble, quieter than you intended. 

“Is the little rat frightened?” He’s sneering, and you wonder how you ever saw warmth in his hate-bright eyes. 

“This little rat wants you to lay the hell off his friends.” 

You’re busy glaring at Tybalt and you don’t even realize Romeo’s in trouble until he yelps. One of the Capulet boys has him at rapier-point, backing him slowly towards the river. You turn, running in a slapdash line, not sure what you’ll do when you get to Romeo. He’s got his hands up. You can’t see the Capulet’s face. 

Tybalt is laughing behind you, and you calculate your odds. The Capulet threatening Romeo is older and you can’t take him down. But Tybalt might just listen to a former friend. 

There, in the sun and heat, you turn on the person who once whiled away the lazy days of summer with you, tense your muscles, and leap upon him. Tybalt shrieks, but he’s stronger than you and pushes you off with little effort. You gasp, but you’re quick to unsheath the dagger you keep at your waist, to brandish it with a shaky hand. 

“You call your friend off, or I’ll hurt you!” 

It sounds pathetic, the words hanging limply in the air.

“With that toothpick?” 

“Yes.” 

He makes an irritated sound, like a cat coughing up fur. The blade shakes in your hand. You don’t really want to hurt Tybalt, but you’re beginning to think you’ll have to draw blood to save your friends. Tybalt makes the fur-coughing noise again, and he gestures rudely at one of his companions. 

“Taddeo, call him off.” 

And just like that, it’s over. You’re not sure if you should thank him or cry, but then he punches you hard in the chest. You bend double, winded.

“Never let me hear you defend them again,” Tybalt hisses. 

You struggle to speak, and the words come out horribly rough and uneven as you grasp fruitlessly for the breath to string them together. 

“Never threaten them again, then,” you rasp. “This isn’t over.” 

He doesn’t dignify you with a response, but you’re aware that this will only be the first of many summertime fights, only the first time you draw steel under the harsh light of the noonday sun. Still catching your breath, you pick your way over to Romeo, anxious to see if he’s all right. 

V.

You’re fourteen years old and Romeo has discovered girls. He has also discovered sonnets, which are predictably awful and which he insists on declaiming to you and Benvolio. You indulge him, because that is what best friends do, even if as his best friend, you wish he wasn’t so in love with the idea of a grand, courtly love for some unknown lady, that he didn’t fancy himself Dante and desire a suitable equivalent to Beatrice. Never mind that you know your own feelings for him are something more puzzling than friendship. 

Where he’s discovered girls, you’ve found yourself watching the other boys. Or rather, you suppose, you’ve found yourself watching sweet, loyal Romeo with his flowers and his poems and devotion to girls he’s spoken to on perhaps one occasion. The identity of his lady-love changes on a near-weekly basis, and each time, he swears the new maiden is his true soulmate. This evening, her name is Cecilia Vannozzi. 

Romeo is breathlessly enumerating her perfections to you. You’re both seated under a tall tree on a hill a bit outside the city, watching the sun melt below the horizon, and Romeo’s got his arms spread wide, as if he’s bounding all his love within the span of his reach. 

“You have to meet her, Mercutio,” he says. “Benvolio has.” 

“And does he like her?”  
“Benvolio says he supports me but I know he thinks I’m silly. I don’t blame him. I only just realized Alessandra wasn’t my true love.” Romeo laughs. 

You lay a hand on his shoulder, smiling. This is what friends do. 

“You going to tell her this time?” 

“Tell her what?” 

“That you absolutely adore her and want to be her knight!” 

It’s half teasing, half serious. Mostly, you just want to see how he reacts. 

“ _ Mercutio! _ You can’t be serious. That’s not knightly at all. Cecilia’s from a good family. She’d be mortified if I were to confess to her or to…” he trails off. 

“To what?” you ask. 

“To ask her if I could kiss her!” 

You snort. 

Suddenly, Romeo grabs your arm. His eyes are wide, and far too frantic. Your stomach jolts, and your heart begins to pound. Is he alright? Has he seen something you should be frightened of too? 

“What’s wrong?” you ask. 

“Mercutio, what if she wants me to kiss her? I’ve never kissed anyone before! What if I make a mess of it and she never wants to speak to me again?” 

He still looks terrified, almost tearful, and you’re so relieved that it’s nothing serious that you can’t help but laugh. Romeo’s eyes are full of reproach, but your laughter continues. 

“Stop laughing at me! It’s a valid concern!” 

When you answer, it’s so impulsive you almost can’t believe you said it aloud, still catching your breath and wiping tears of amusement from your eyes. 

“Want to practice with me?” 

Romeo is quiet for a moment, his eyes wide. Around you, the air is slow and summery, the birds a discordant chorus as the day fades. You cock your head expectantly. 

“Well? Do you?” 

He’s too quiet, and you’re half afraid you’ve scared him away for good. Then, before you can quite believe your good fortune, he nods, quick and shy and nervous. You grin at him, and rearrange the position of your body so you’re facing each other. Your heart is pounding, and for a moment, you fear that Romeo can hear every beat. Then, you lean in. 

The first kiss is a disaster, dry and awkward, ridiculously chaste. You break apart, giggling, and Romeo lets out a desperate wail. 

“I’m a failure!” he cries, and you laugh. 

“We can try again, if you want,” you say. 

This time, it’s Romeo who initiates, and it’s almost as bad as the first time, sloppy and fish-like. It takes a few tries before the kissing resembles something more pleasant, and by then, your heart is pounding at a truly terrifying rate. You’re terrified and elated and unable to believe that this has happened, that Romeo is kissing you, that you’re kissing him back, and that the only thing missing from the equation are Romeo’s sentiments. You break away from him, smiling. 

“Think you’ve got the hang of it?” you ask, smirking. 

Romeo is blushing. “Maybe.” 

“We can always practice again,” you say. 

“Of course!” Romeo says. “But we should head home. The Prince will be missing you.” 

You nod, and race him down the hill towards the sleepy, huddled outline of Verona, still trying to convince yourself you’re just Romeo’s friend as night casts its cloak over the sky. 

The next day, you practice-kiss Benvolio, just to make sure that everything you’ve done has been completely platonic, and that there are no feelings but those of deep and proper masculine friendship. 

But while Benvolio is just as inexperienced as Romeo, your heart doesn’t pound when you kiss him and there is no joy. What remains is awkwardness and the unspoken promise that you and Benvolio will never speak of this again. 

You’re fourteen, and you realize you’re in love with Romeo Montague. 

VI.

You’re seventeen, and it is raining in Verona at the height of summer. The streets, dusty just a few hours earlier, are mud-slick and the sky is a grey haze above the city’s red clay roofs. From an upstairs window in your uncle’s palazzo, you watch common folk dashing through the deluge, cloaks above their heads, and wait for Romeo and Benvolio to arrive. 

Benvolio is first to enter your chamber, shaking water from his hair like a dog. 

“It’s miserable out there.” 

Benvolio has never been one for uneven weather. 

“I like it,” you reply, even though some vague unease has burbled up through your consciousness with the rain. 

Benvolio looks at you oddly; he knows you too well. But, friend that he is, he says nothing, and joins you at the windowsill. 

“Funny to think we’ve never been outside this city,” he says after a few minutes of silence punctuated only by raindrops. “You think we’ll ever see the rest of Italy? Do you ever want to go away from Verona?” 

You do. You’ve heard travellers’ tales of Florence, and of the ancient ruins still at Rome. Venice is only a few days’ ride from Verona, and you’ve heard that men like you are, if not welcome, tolerated there. And imagining what the sea must look like makes you giddy. 

“Tell you what—” you say— “This time next year, we go to Venice. You, me, Romeo. Just us. We’ll see the sea.” 

It’s at that moment that Romeo enters the room. 

“I’m in love with the fair Rosaline,” he announces, breathless with excitement. “Wait, what are we doing?” 

“Venice, next summer,” Benvolio says. “And a Capulet, really?” 

“She’s not  _ really  _ a Capulet,” Romeo protests. “Her uncle’s married to a Montague.” 

You’ve grown used to Romeo’s babbling about girls, but you would be lying if you said that each new conquest didn’t hurt your heart a bit more than the last. You know you should stop sighing over Romeo and find an agreeable footman of a similar persuasion to yourself, but it’s hard to argue with youthful love, as Romeo himself would say. Sighing, you stare more intently into the rain. 

“When do you think this weather will let up?” Benvolio asks. “These downpours aren’t normal for July.” 

“I rather like it,” Romeo says. “I’ve been in a melancholy mood—” 

“And it’s hard to mope around in black when the sun’s beating down on the city,” you finish, jabbing him in the side with your elbow. 

“I don’t mope!” 

You all have a good laugh over Romeo’s love life, and the rain slows. This, you think, is what true friendship is. There is laughter, and comfort, and mutual trust, and there is the feeling that things will never change. It will always be Romeo, Mercutio, and Benvolio. In this moment, you are immortal. What a thing it is to be seventeen and in love and ready for the world to open up its lap to you, fully prepared to always stay atop of Fortune’s wheel. 

Two weeks from now, Rosaline will be forgotten, and Romeo will have a new lady-love, and you’ll still be pining away after him, you know. But at least there will always be Capulets to quarrel with and uncles to disappoint and the promise of an inheritance hanging in the balance. Some things never change. You turn to Romeo. 

“Capulets are having a feast soon.” You realize it’s a weak way to change the subject, but you say it anyway. “And a masque. My uncle the Prince wants me and my honored brother the sycophant to attend. Perhaps Rosaline will be there. I’ll give her your regards.” 

There’s a puckish grin playing on your lips, and Romeo’s brow furrows. Then he shoves you, laughing. 

“Come off it, you ass,” he says, laughing. “You’ll make her hate me!” 

_ Good,  _ you think, and decide not to take the slight as an insult. 

Benvolio shakes his head, but he’s smiling too. 

“I never know what to do with you two,” he sighs. 

Outside, the sky brightens as the rain slows to a drizzle, sun breaking through fissures in the clouds, hesitant beams sparkling on puddles. The common folk return to the streets, stepping over mud and carrying baskets. Life was merely halted by the deluge, not stopped. Maybe soon, the sky will clear, and the roads will dry, and summer will once more cast its dusty mantle over the red-roofed town, but you find yourself hoping the rain will remain. There’s something like surrender in watching the sky fall. It’s something more grave and wondrous than sunlight. 

For the first time in many months, you wonder what Tybalt’s doing. Life, after all, has gone on for him too. You see him sometimes, scowling in your uncle’s audience hall, or you encounter him in the streets, spoiling for a fight. He’s grown more gaunt and catlike with the years, all quiet tread and hunter’s eyes. Sometimes, you fancy his ears bent back in disgust, his teeth bared. Sometimes, he looks at you like he’d enjoy nothing more than tearing you limb from limb. But you were friends once, and friendship counts for something, doesn’t it? 

Your new friends surround you in a way that Tybalt never did, and so what if he hated you? Romeo and Benvolio love and respect you, and even if Romeo’s love isn’t the love you want from him, you’re happy enough with  _ philia  _ even if you pine for  _ eros.  _

Bathed in light, Romeo is laughing at something Benvolio said, and the newborn sunlight drenches the room in pale gold, and you’re happy, or at the very least, content. Nothing can possibly go wrong now. 

 

_ Coda.  _

You didn’t notice the world ending, though once you loved them both as brothers and now you loved one as something more. The apocalypse snuck quietly up on the whole of Verona, and all because of a party and a misplaced glance at a girl in a phoenix mask. All because you dragged Romeo along to his doom. You and Fortune and Queen Mab. You’re killing him, you think, with your death.

Of course, you want to say, but you’re lying on the ground and your mouth is full of blood. Of course Romeo’s passions flare brightest for the Capulet girl. Of course, she’s the one he finally takes action towards and falls so deeply for that he’s drowning in love. It’s so obvious, so perfectly ironic. You’d cry for Romeo, if you weren’t the one dying right now. You’d tell him that even love wasn’t worth death, and you’d hope against hope that he’d take you in his arms. 

But you can’t do that, so you do the next best thing. And you’re thinking equally of Romeo and poor, rash, foolish Tybalt, so blinded by his hate he’d kill the boy who once was his best friend, when you do it. 

You can’t help but think of yourself, of Romeo, and of Tybalt as boys. All of you are too young and green and stupid to be called men, though once you thought you ruled an entire world. All of you hated without reason, hated as violently as you loved. 

And Verona will burn for it. Good. It deserves it. Let the city feel some pain as it chews its own children to pieces. Maybe someone will clean up the ashes when all of you are gone. Maybe the city will find peace. 

Maybe it’s true, that old saying, that  _ omnia vincit amor,   _ and maybe Juliet’s mask was a sign of better things to come. But you don’t think so.

You smile with bloodied teeth, bloodied lips. 

“A plague on both your houses!” 

In the end, you curse them both, because love is both too near and too far for you to reach in this lifetime, and in bleeding Verona, hatred will have to do. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been fond of the idea that Mercutio and Tybalt have some kind of less contentious history. That (and my selfish desire for more angsty unrequited Mercutio/Romeo fanfic) was the impetus for this little project. Also, I just really wanted to play around with the kind of side-flopping that Mercutio's technically-not-a-Montague-or-a-Capulet status could allow for. And I wanted to toy with POV and narration styles. So, basically, this was completely self-indulgent and I hope there's an audience of more than one for it.


End file.
